And the World Burns
by bluethursday
Summary: Tim is a seer, Jason tries to deal with what that means.


Seer!AU Tim is a seer, Jason tries to deal with what that means.

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

"Jason"

Jason wakes up instantly at the sound of Tim's voice. He's trained himself to wake at the smallest sound, the slightest movement. Its more important now than ever before. The last time Jason didn't wake up, Tim almost walked off the balcony. The drop would have killed him.

He opens his eyes to see Tim watching things Jason wished he never had to deal with.

"Jason, I had a dream." Tim cuddled closer to Jason's chest, looking more like a scared child than anything else. These days he clung to Jason everywhere they went, trusting the older man to take of him.

"The world was on fire." His voice is breathy and soft.

Jason runs his fingers through Tim's hair. It's longer now then ever before. The last time Tim went near a pair of scissors he added another scar to his neck, just below the other one.

Jason wasn't sure if Tim never meant to harm himself and it just happened because he couldn't remember where he was and that it was a bad idea to walk into traffic during rush hour when the stoplight was red, or if he was trying to make to voices stop.

On one good day, where Tim was more coherent he said that it was like being in a room with endless televisions each one on a different station blasting at full volume and you had to watch all of them at the same time, and it was so hard Jason so hard, so please, please make it stop, Jason make it stop.

Except Jason couldn't make it stop and that made him feel like shit.

He braced himself for whatever was going to happen next and he prayed to every god he knew that tonight would be one of the better nights.

"What happened precious, can you remember?"

Tim shook his head back and forth and settled back into the crook of Jason's neck.

"The world was on fire." He repeated, Jason felt more than heard the words being spoken.

"The world was on fire, and I thought you should know Jay. I just, I just, I just thought you should know." Sometimes Tim would repeat a word over an over again, hazy eyes darting to and fro like he was a scratched record stuck repeating himself.

Blue eyes looked up at him. "The world was on fire." This time he sounded confused.

Jason kissed the top of Tim's smooth pale forehead.

"Let it burn."

…

Everything falls, everything breaks. At the end _everything_ falls.

Even Bats, even Supers.

There is a point, somewhere between what is and what will never be, what must never come to be where everything breaks.

Tim pushes his head closer to Jason's chest. This Jason is real. This Jason hasn't burned him alive, hurt him, killed him over and over again. Once, twice, three hundred and forty seven times with a crowbar.

He doesn't always count. He can't always count. The memories, visions, things he sees wash everything away and he can't he just can't. So he shuts his eyes one last time, if only, if only.

He shuts his eyes and everything is there.

Superman is dead.

Superman had died.

Superman is dying. Why is he is dying?

Batman is the same. He is asleep, hurt, alive. Batman is Dick, Bruce, Tim, Jason, Damian and sometimes he's Clark and Bruce is dead, so far down that the worms can't reach him. So far down that if Tim tries, presses his face to the dirt he'll get deep enough.

He sees a little girl in Kenya, and a middle aged salesman in New York. He sees everything they could have been. Everything they never were or almost were, or would be. He watches and he wishes that for once he could stop.

When he open's his eyes Jason is still there. Only it's not Jason, and it is. It's the man he loves, the man he's always loved most of the time. Once he slept with Lex Luthor. Once he married Slade Wilson and they had three children but two died and one was turned into a rose, or named Rose but he can't really remember.

Once he ripped out one of Slade's eyes and once he made him live forever.

Most of the time, he loves Jason. Most of the time Jason loves him back. Most of the time.

He wonders what Jason would say if he told him that in another timeline, another place, this place, Ra's had treated him as though he was the most precious thing the man had ever known. He wonders what Jason would say if he told him that Ra's had beaten him, broken him beyond any measure of conceivable pain and then brought him back to life only to do it all over again.

He wonders but he won't say a single word. Some day's he isn't even coherent and right now he's lucid enough to know that he's usually not coherent. On the day's that he thinks he makes perfect sense, he usually doesn't. Jason hates those day's because he can never convince him that what he's doing is wrong. Except that it isn't. Tim has never been wrong. Can never been wrong, but Jason can't see that so Tim tries his best to explain and somewhere in that explanation he tries to walk off a cliff.

Jason never handled that well. Except when he was trying to kill him. Cliffs weren't his usual method. Jason was always so much more…personal. The knives were always the hardest to bear.

If he tried, Tim knows that Jason could be exceptionally cruel with a knife, because he had once spent months on end doing just that. Tim still feels the scars on his back, even if they're not actually there at this moment, at this time. They were from then, and things from then don't always show up. Like scars or children or people.

He wonders what Jason would say if he knew that Damian had once been their son.

He can feel Jason breathing as he closes is eyes. He won't sleep, but that's okay, he doesn't sleep much anyway.

…

Dick can't help but pace back and forth nervously in front of the smallest Robin.

At exactly eleven thirty Tim had walked down to the kitchen, laid down on the tile floor and hadn't moved since. Everything before that had gone without incident. Everything before that had been Tim staring at the ceiling of the room he shared with Jason.

Dick swallowed the saliva that had built up, biting his lip in frustration. The worst part was always the helplessness. He could never be what Tim needed, what he wanted when he was like this. Sometimes not even Jay could be what Tim needed, but most of the time he could. Jason could fix this, if only he was here.

His baby brother was laying on the floor shaking and all Dick could do was stare and try hopelessly to bite back his cries. What could he do for the boy laying prone on the floor, body shaking with small tremors? What could he say to make it all better?

Jason had gone out, for the first time in months without Tim, just for a little bit, just to help Bruce with a case and the smallest Robin became catatonic in his absence. Dick hopes Jason will get here soon. He prays for his other little brother to arrive swiftly as he can.

When the second Robin comes home, case unfinished, case abandoned, he turns past Dick without a word, unspoken anger clear in the set of his shoulders _you couldn't even take care of him for a day could you Dickie. _Dick knows thats a lie, that Jason loves him and has no anger towards him, but the words repeat in his head. Their truth inescapable.

He can do nothing but watch as Jay brings Tim water for his parched throat, the bottles Dick had accumulated resting uselessly on the table top. Watches as Jay sips the liquid before he slips it into Tim's mouth, force feeding the much needed nourishment into Tim.

He watches, but can do nothing, apologies waiting to leave his throat. He watches as Jason carries Tim out of the kitchen, and Dick had tried but every time he tried Tim would start screaming, bloodcurdling animal noises of pain until Dick had no choice but to place him back of the floor.

_You couldn't even take care of him for a day could you Dickie?_

The voice in his head sounds like Jason.


End file.
